New Food Storage Plan

Two big dogs eat a great deal of food.  In the past I have tried a pedal trash can as a storage container but got tired of walking around it even after the first kitchen remodeling.  Then I went to quart jars and had 22 of them lined up on the counter.  Now I am aiming for minimal counter clutter, although you wouldn't know it right this minute because of the continual sorting going on and also two dozen tomatoes that need processing.

The jars held two cups of kibble which is one meal and they are fed twice a day.  I always worry about being fair and making sure each dog gets the same amount.

Stuff and Space are my big issue now.   The new plan is filling the jar full, which is 4 cups of food.  Each dog gets one jar per day and to make sure no dog gets more than the other, I simply but Jack's name on half the jars.  So now we are only using 12 jars, still feeding twice a day, and they all fit on the cookie sheets that are too big for the new oven but do very nicely as a "serving tray" because they can be pulled forward out of the cupboard.

 Cross that off the list!

Swiffer XL

Now, the dust mop with the cheerful lime green is fairly new, within the last year, because I use it to mop the perimeter of the living room when accessible (the floor, not the mop.)  For removing the ever present dog hair in the kitchen and sewing room, I used a broom or the vacuum cleaner.

Now that there is a greater expanse of uninterrupted kitchen floor, the dog hair removal needed to be addressed and I was told that my lime green dust mop was lacking.  Not just the size of it but the swivel handle action was pathetic according to Amy.  I deferred to her opinion since I just use a Swiffer when I clean the bathroom at work which is, of course, a small space. 

Well.  She is spot on with this!  I can zoom around the kitchen in no time flat, swiveling and swirling  and picking up all that dog hair.  Given that it needs to be done daily, and twice daily would be better, it's nice that it is so easy.

Apparently it is hard to find the XL refills in stores but they do have them on Amazon.  Average price is 75¢ each for one disposable "cloth".  Yikes.  So I picked up a piece of  scrap fleece and made two  re-useable cloths that cost 17¢ each.  That makes me happy!  The fleece works very well and all you need to do is cut it to size, no finishing of edges is needed.  I can just toss them in with the throw rugs and other rags when I do that load of laundry. 

Motorcycles on the bottom side. Maybe that's why I can move so fast.

Vacation

While we still puttered around a bit, it really was a vacation from workers and waiting.

Got knobs on drawers and cabinets

The table is covered with purchases from the Farmer's Market, Costco, and Target.  Someone has a bit of an obsession with mini Legos!  You can also see the Honey Crisp apples which are simply fabulous.

Amy taught us how to use 2 circular needles to knit socks.  She was zoomin'!

These are mine.  I did start over again but I am s-l-o-w.

Tris learned how to crochet dish cloths for his first apartment

A cat mat for Rigby

A nook cover for Amy

Requisite dog picture of Dylan taking over the bed.  He loved the air mattress.

Looking Back

Thursday, September 13, 7 am....

That's right, 7am.  The sun is not even over the mountains that early, fps and I was still in my pajamas when they knocked on the door!  The electricians had a full day scheduled and hoped to get a good part of my install done and then squeeze in the finishing up.  They were close to completing the oven install when the counter top guy showed up at 8.  He couldn't work around them so he left and came back in half an hour. 

Tyler is a nice man and did a very fine job and was done just before 11.  Then Larry came to install the sink and make a small but vital repair to the sprinkler system in the backyard.  He only needed one trip to Home Depot which is petty amazing with any project requiring plumbing!  The electricians came back and finished with the stove top installation which really took no time at all.  While Larry was at Home Depot and there were no other workers here, I jumped into the shower and by now it was 3:30 and I wanted to be on the way to the airport by 4:30.  It was 4:40 and I left Larry with his head under the sink and hoped, really hoped, that he would be gone by the time I got back.

The freeway was smooth sailing but you can never tell of course.  I was 45 minutes early but the plane was 15 minutes early so not bad at all.  My observation is that most people in the Park and Wait use the time to clean their car.  I, myself, found a bank deposit receipt from 2006.  Don't even do business with those people anymore.

We came home to a kitchen with functioning appliances and running water and no Larry!
 

Words

I'm a word person.  I love words.  Over the weekend I was thinking about the law of (positive) attraction and it occurred to me that the words I have posted on my refrigerator should be the theme for the rest of the month.

One word about the refrigerator.  Cluttered.  And the inside isn't much better right now.

With all the workers and work going on in the kitchen, things were being knocked off.  A fairly obvious message.  Here is the new and improved look:

Only two things remain, a picture of my all time favorite sculpture, Alexander Calder's Eagle, and the words that are September's theme...wag more, bark less.  It's at eye level for the boys but really it's advice we can all take.

A bit of a side track but currently I am hooked on the series of Ted Talks called Numbers Speak Louder Than Words.  This morning I watched a talk on African fractals.  These are the words that made me happy:

"Pseudo random number generation using determinative chaos."

It's an amazing thing, in this case, using lines drawn in the sand in pairs of odd and even which could also be ones and zeroes or binary code.  

What a world we live in.

Pic Mix

Friday morning when I opened the back door I saw this.  Something had pulled out the basil and the geraniums from the green pot.  Not behavior I have seen from the big dogs before but it would seem odd for a cat too.  The geraniums were just laying there but the basil was gone.  Racoons maybe?  And why was the mint ignored?

Friday morning Ben and John came to move the cabinets so the drawer would open.  The Ikea schematic was wrong and so we had the spacer on the other/wrong side.

Ben always came prepared and his tool bag was a sight to behold.  Quite like the magical bag Mary Poppins carried, fabulous tools came forth from this bag too but you would never be able to leave the ground if you were carrying it!

And yesterday I put a finished tag on the island re-do.  L-O-V-E it!

Vile Stuff

The oil based version.  Will try to remember how much I dislike this version and use the latex kind instead!

The Puzzle Quilt

Just finished this one as a sample for a Beginners Quilting class.  The pattern name is really Pea Patch and it is an Easy-Peasy quilt because it has only one seam to match!  As you can see if you enlarge the picture, the border fabric has puzzle pieces in it.

Spiral Dogs

MNDeb and I had a bit of a cook-out on Sunday.  Pretty funny looking dogs and it took a little practice to get them nicely spiraled.  Got the idea from Chow.com.  Lots of other fun stuff there as well.  I love the waffle iron ideas!

Kitchen Remodel, day 160

Okay, it just seems that way.  The men started at 8 and left at 5:15.  I thought it would be more like a half day's work.  They did the hard part on Saturday with all the leveling but then today there was hole cutting for plumbing and outlets and continued leveling for each added cabinet.

Here's where we are.  The large opening is for the oven, the smaller opening on the right is a false drawer front in the sink cabinet and the drawer opening in the middle of the picture is the uh-oh.  Ben went to slide in the drawer and uh-oh, couldn't get it in.  Our schematic showed the spacer strip on the wrong side.  It should have been on the sink side not the peninsula.

Of course there are options but I think my choice is to cut the 4-inch spacer down the middle and put 2-inch pieces on each side.  I lose my step stool slot next to the refrigerator and there might be an issue with the cleat they put in for the peninsula, i.e. holes in the new floor that will show.  Maybe Dave the floor guy will have a way to fix that.

So they will be back on Friday because Ben works 4 tens, I am off all day and John is home all the time.

Guess I won't be putting anything in the cabinets tonight after all.

Coming together

They didn't get started until late but made good progress for today. 

Big dogs stuck outside again and feeling very left out.

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Lots of leveling and you can tell it is later by the lighting.  

The plan is for an early start on Monday.